


But I'll Be Close Behind

by fringesandcringes



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, Therapy, also tiny references to anxiety and obsessive thinking, but it's never graphic! just honest and intimate thoughts on mental illness and therapy, the fun stuff, you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-02 22:16:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12735402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fringesandcringes/pseuds/fringesandcringes
Summary: Exploring how they work through Dan's depression individually and as a partnership, through therapy sessions, episodes, and posting a YouTube video about it for the whole world to see.





	But I'll Be Close Behind

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I'm back from the dead! I never really stopped following Dan and Phil since I last posted (MORE THAN TWO YEARS AGO YIKES), but I've failed to finish and post new fic just 'cause of who I am as a person...until now! 
> 
> ALSO, I'm happy to announce that I'll be doing 12 Days of Ficmas this December, where I post a fic every day for the 12 days leading to the big day! Woot 
> 
> Please see the tags for warnings, and enjoy x

“Are you not gonna face me, then?” 

“Nope.” Dan keeps throwing the ball against the wall, watching it bounce back down and back to his hand, over and over, with the amount of enthusiasm for monotony that Dan will never have. 

“Okay.” 

“I still don’t know if I’m gonna say anything.” 

“Okay.” 

“This is,” Dan breathes. “This is really hard for me.” 

This time, Phil doesn’t say anything. He keeps waiting. “Why is this one different?” 

At that, Dan actually chuckles—out of pure discomfort than anything else—and directs his gaze to the six feet of distance between him and Phil. “I suppose it’s not.”

The other boy knows that gaze, can notice it amid a fucking hurricane; he crawls across the carpet, and perches closer to where Dan is now purposefully averting his gaze. The ball keeps going, its beats echoing around the quiet room. 

“Pull my daisy / Tip my cup / All my doors are open / Cut my thoughts / All my eggs are broken...” Phil recites perfectly, fluently. It’s something he very rarely shows to other people, but he was obsessed with poems. He reads them constantly, memorizes his favourites. He hates doing this with anyone else, for fear of what he claimed to be “being a pretentious twat”. 

“...Jack my Arden / gate my shades / woe my road is spoken /” Dan finishes. When Phil gives him a surprised, mildly impressed smile, he shrugs, “'Pull My Daisy' by Ginsberg. It’s one of your favourites.”  
Phil raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t think beat poetry was what you’d want to talk about.” He leans forward with wide-eyed sincerity. “Because I completely support it.”

Dan snorts out a laugh, shaking his head at the stupid joke. “Okay, okay.” He casts his eyes downward. “I,” then looks at Phil in the eye when he says, “am tremendously suicidal.” His eyes snap back upward basking in the deafening silence. In an alternate world he would have stared at Phil’s face. He would’ve studied his partner’s reaction to such a revealing confession that he feels every nerve in his body exposed and raw, ready to be poked and prodded by the entire world—well, _his_ entire world. That almost makes it worse. 

Dan couldn’t handle the silence anymore, so he asks, “Aren’t you gonna say something?”

“Aren’t _you_ gonna say something?” 

“Well not until you go first, you spoon. It’s not exactly my favourite topic to talk about.”

“Well, duh.”

Three beats. “That’s it?”

“What, do you prefer more Ginsberg?” 

Dan sighs. “Say my oops / Ope my shell / Bite my naked nut”.

“Dan,” Phil prods. 

“Okay. I just,” he breathes, “don’t know where to start.” 

“Twenty questions?” Phil smiles.

Dan returns it. “When we used to do that, I either ended up crying or with your cock in my mouth.”

Phil looks away—his knee-jerk reaction to the crudeness so ingrained into Dan that it still slips out two years in. 

“Sorry.”

“S’okay.”

“Okay, yes, let’s do that.” Dan swallows. “Twenty questions.” He positions himself to re-face the wall, away from such a heavy gaze.

“First question: did you eat today?”

“Excuse me?” 

“I just realized I forgot to ask,” Phil smiles. “I’m serious though.” 

“I...yeah, I think. I had some cereal in the morning and a sandwich. You only have nineteen left, you know.”

“I’m aware.” 

“Okay.” 

“Why?”

“Why did I have a sandwich?”

“Why are you suicidal?”

“It’s like, wishful thinking. Everything just gets so fucking heavy and alone and unbearable that it’s so...seductive to think of everything to just...stop. To stop and to just not have to _deal_ with it all, you know? It’s this awful paradox of the world’s weight and meaningless...ness.” He really wishes he was normal enough to shed a single tear and look gorgeous, but it’s never quite like that. He’s just tired. And uncomfortable. “It’s not really something you can explain so much as something you just have to fight. Every single day. Until you don’t anymore. Then you forget, then you live life. Then it comes back. Wash, rinse, repeat.”

“Why did it take you so long to tell me?”

 _Why are you making this about you?_ Dan swallows hard and stays quiet, walls only strengthening around his impenetrable fortress. Instead of fighting it, tearing apart this godforsaken prison, he stays. Cemented default. “I’m tired.” 

Phil looks at him with a look that says he understands what that means, gets up from the floor, kisses the top of Dan’s head and walks out the door. 

 

It wasn’t until two months later that Phil would find out that Dan curled up into a ball immediately after he closed the door behind him, a plead for him to stay longer and to hold him and listen to him talk never leaving his lips. 

***

Phil looks up from his phone when he sees Dan re-enter the lobby from his peripheral vision, closes the ongoing game of Crossy Road and watches him sit down one seat away from him. “Hi,” he says tentatively. He’s spent the majority of the hour he was waiting for him to return thinking how he should ask Dan how the session went. He settled on staying quiet and waiting for him to speak on his own terms. He decides to prod. “How was it?” 

Dan shrugs, his expression unreadable. “It was okay, I guess.” 

Phil suddenly becomes hyper-aware of the receptionist sitting a couple of metres away, well within earshot. He slightly jerks his head toward the door as a silent warning, which Dan immediately registers. They walk out the door, Phil tossing a polite smile in her general direction as the glass doors swung close. 

He lasts approximately sixteen steps of silence down the pavement before giving into his urge to press further. “So what did you guys...do?” He focuses his gaze away, on the cars whizzing by. 

“It was...fine.” 

“Would you call that a good fine? Or a bad fine?” With only the tiniest amount of guilt, he decides to abandon his first tactic altogether. 

They reach the tube station, touching in past the gate. Dan stays quiet until they reach escalator, avoiding Phil’s gaze from one step above. “Like, ‘interrupting-me-to-answer-phone-calls-every-ten-minutes the-whole-time-I-spoke’ fine.” 

Phil feels stunned. “Dan.” He says softly, reaching up to touch his arm. 

He hears him chuckle, dry and ironic. “Yeah. It was pretty fucking terrible.”

They reach the top, walking onto the platform. Phil hesitates before speaking again, “do we wanna try another one?” 

He shakes his head. “Not for a while.” 

“Okay.” A gust of wind signalled the train’s arrival, a red blur coming to a halt in front of them. He nudges Dan’s shoulder with his own. “Thanks for indulging me.” 

Dan turns and offers a sincere, yet tiny smile. They step into the train, let the doors close behind them, and that was that. 

*** 

Phil’s phone screen displayed 7:58 when he checked it again, signalling ten and a half hours since Phil woke up to an empty house. For the millionth time, he unlocks Dan’s abandoned phone to try and find any indication of where he went. He forces himself to focus on his laptop when he finds nothing. 

This wasn’t a first; Dan’s left their flat without his phone a number of times before, from feeling like the walls were cinder and bars. “An attempt to temporarily run away”, as Dan would explain. He’s never been gone for more than five hours. Another five shouldn’t make a difference, and the routine of these situations should promise normalcy. 

But. 

He completes a grand total of three emails when his mind starts to spiral again, tightening and tightening down to a focal point of panic. 

_Dan's not dead._

_He'll come back._

_Stop worrying._

He’s toying with a compulsion to put on his coat and look outside himself when he hears the door downstairs unhinge. He listens to Dan’s footsteps climbing up the steps, letting a strange mix of relief and irritation course through his system. He watches him emerge into the lounge, and Phil gets up from the couch to offer a small smile. “Welcome home,” he says with a level voice. 

Dan doesn’t offer more than a smile, not even bothering to stop as he swipes his phone from the coffee table and heads to their room. 

Phil can feel the irritation rising up his throat, threatening to unleash an angry frustration out his mouth. He takes a breath, counts to twelve, and follows Dan. 

He sees him lying on their bed, scrolling through his phone. He sits down at the foot, and works harder to keep his voice even. “Where were you?” 

Dan shrugs. “Out.” He rolls to his side, an attempt to dismiss the conversation. 

He inches closer on the bed. “Was it a bad one?” 

He shrugs again. 

“Dan.” He waits for him to look up, and suppresses his initial instinct warning him not to push. “You have to talk to me. We’re a team, remember? You can’t keep shutting me out.” 

When Dan doesn’t respond and merely rolls onto his stomach, Phil brings it up with a voice barely over a whisper. “Do you wanna try another therapist? I hate seeing you like this. I can keep looking for good ones, or we can get a recommendation, or—"  
He’s surprised to hear Dan cut him off. Muffled by the mattress, his voice was barely coherent when he speaks. “I already did.” 

Phil’s jaw drops, immediately scanning the past month for a day when Dan could have done it without him knowing. “Wait, what?” 

He watches Dan slowly roll over onto his back, focusing his gaze on the ceiling. “Two weeks ago. When you had that lunch thing with Hazel. It went pretty fucking terribly, which is why I didn’t tell you.” 

Phil stares at the wall, willing his confusion and guilt to subside. At a loss of what to say, he lies on the bed next to Dan. _Physical comfort without uninvited touch_ , as that one research article advised him. He waited for him to speak. 

“It was from one of the cards you had on the kitchen table. Dr. Faz Singh.” 

“Did his receptionist at least answer calls for her?”

Dan laughs. “Yeah. It gave her plenty of room to tell me that all this was a way for me to seek attention from a higher power. And that it’s dangerous to diagnose such a young person. And that I just had to learn to control myself.” 

He wraps his arm across his middle, giving the tightest hug as he can. “I’m sorry.” 

He feels Dan shake his head. “I’m supposed to be the one apologizing. I’m sorry I kept it from you.” He gently rolls to his side, and Phil immediately spoons him. 

“I just want you better.” Phil whispers. 

“I just want me better, too.” 

Phil counts thirty-nine breaths before he’s sure Dan’s fallen asleep, finally letting himself drift off with him. 

***

 _October 11, 2017_. 2:31 AM. 

“I think that’s it.” Dan says in the cautious intonation he uses in the middle of the night. He arches his back onto a stretch, tipping his chair backwards. 

Phil sets a cup of tea down next to the Mac as he pulls the chair upright, not even earning a flinch from the other. “Really?”  
“  
Yeah.” His voice got lower. Phil watches his fingers tapping an erratic rhythm on the desk. _I don't know what to feel_.

His mum calls it _The Shining_ power, when she catches them having entire conversations with twitches of their mouths, narrowing of the eyes, bumping of the knees. Phil insists it's just an unhealthy side effect from spending all their time together, but it’s times like these when it’s extremely convenient. 

He gently pokes Dan’s cheek. _You don't have to be afraid_.

Dan smiles at him and stands from his chair, taking a sip from his tea. An open invitation to take a look. Phil takes his spot and puts on the headphones, watching the fifth version of the playback of the night. He doesn’t have to look to see Dan watching intently behind him. He doesn’t hesitate to turn around and tell him to cut the forty-second skit of him trying to get out of bed, and that the cut of him walking down the stairs was half a second too long. Dan doesn’t flinch or blush, but takes the feedback and instantly makes the changes. 

Phil can’t help but smile. He squeezes Dan’s shoulder, eternally grateful for the infinite capacity of their partnership. 

Phil watches Dan makes the edits, staring at the clips they filmed together the day before, he couldn’t help but slide his arms around his chest in a tight hug from behind.

_I'm so proud of you._

Dan leans his head back, his forehead falling underneath his partner’s chin, and closes his eyes. 

_I could never have done it alone._

Phil stays still, revelling in the moment until he feels Dan blow a raspberry on his neck. He yelps, jumping backward. “I hate you so much!” He laughs. 

_I love you_.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! As with any story I post, I don't claim to have ownership of Dan or Phil. I'm very careful when making the distinction between them as living people and as characters I get to manipulate.
> 
> I haven't posted anything on my tumblr since 2016 (again, yikes!), but my inbox is always open if you ever wanna chat: fringesandcringes.tumblr.com xx


End file.
